What is the Difference Between Frogs and Toads?

The difference between frogs and toads begins with their Order. If you can remember back to your biology days, the classifications system for every living thing goes Kingdom (Animalia), Phylum (Chordata), Class (Amphibia), Order (Anura – which includes frogs and toads). After Order, they break into two different families. Frogs are part of the Ranidae family and toads are part of the Bufonidae family. That is the difference in their official classifications, but there are many physical differences between the two as well.

Frogs live in or around the water, have bulging eyes, wet skin, teeth, webbed hind feet and lay their eggs in clusters. Toads live on dry land, and have a dry body. They only go into the water to lay their eggs, that are wrapped around water plants in long strings. They have shorter legs without any webbing between their toes and they have a poison secreting gland behind their eyes.

Frogs are found on every continent in the world except Antarctica whereas toads are not normally found in Australasia with the exception of the Cane Toad which was introduced to Australia in order to protect against the Greyback Cane Beatle (except for those of you Simpsonphiles out there who may remember when Bart brought his pet toad to Australia and brought backa Koala Bear to Springfield). The Cane Beatle notoriously destroyed sugar cane crops. As with the case of many introduced species, the Cane Toad quickly became a problem; in part, because any animal; domestic or wild who consumes the toxic Cane Toad, will die. I am sure there are cases of introduced species that have worked out well… many of the plants that we grow in North America are probably imports, and yet they sustain us. I wonder what affect it had on the local plants. Food for thought.